Marion sank down on the log by the fire. Her head felt very hot and heavy and her nostrils and upper lip very sore. The comfort of the hot drink had worn off, though she told herself that the medicine must soon make her better. She had not rested long when Peterkin’s head appeared over the half-door and his twisted hand, very muddy, slid over the top and unhooked it, and he came in dripping and shivering. She could see at once that something was wrong. She asked him what was the matter.

‘I dropped Father’s knife,’ he said, almost crying.

‘Oh Peterkin – where?’

‘When I was up the tree, it dropped.’

‘But it was tied round your neck.’

Peterkin looked guilty and sheepish and desperate all at once.

‘It couldn’t have dropped unless the thong broke – or you took it off.’ Marion was emphatic in her accusation. ‘Which?’

‘I had to take it off,’ Peterkin complained. ‘The thong was too short, it wouldn’t reach. Then it got tangled in some of the withies, and I had to unwind it, and the thong slid out of the knife handle – out of the hole through it – and it fell.’

‘Into the water or on to the bank?’

‘Into the water. I heard it plop.’

‘Well, there’s a terrible thing. What’ll your father say?’

‘Don’t know. Paulo and me felt around in the mud under the water there for ages but we couldn’t find it. He had a pointed knife and he stuck it into the bark when he wasn’t cutting. We did search for it, truly, Mam, we did, and it was awfully cold. He’d finished cutting his tree, and I’d almost finished cutting mine, so he got up into mine and finished cutting – and we laid all the withies out like father said in three piles on the bank, and then we searched again. I thought that the water might have cleared and we could’ve seen the knife, but the water’s hardly moving and we couldn’t and the mud’s very soft and very deep – up to here on me – and Paulo tried walking about to try and feel the knife with his bare feet, but he couldn’t – ’ Peterkin burst into crying.

‘Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk,’ said Marion, a thing she had frequently seen done when a frisky cow had kicked a bucket over. ‘I don’t know what your father’ll say.’ But she knew very well what Peter would say and when he came home soon and was told the fate of his knife, he said it all exactly as Marion had anticipated.

‘Stupid, careless, disobedient boy. I told you to keep it tied round your neck – nonsense, it was quite long enough, you’d be crouching down on top of the tree anyway. I hope you cut what you did close to the bark. Why didn’t you do as I told you? I’ve had that knife since I was a lad and I never lost it. That fat handle, smooth, round, just fitted into the palm of my hand – I had it all these years and you had it hardly half a day and you lose it. It’s all very well to say you’ll go and look for it again and you know where it fell, the stream mud is deep and soft and I expect Paulo walking about in it stirred it all up. My knife might be anywhere now – No, feckless, thoughtless, wasteful boy – ’